


Left Behind

by Sasam



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Gen, ghosting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:20:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25549603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sasam/pseuds/Sasam
Summary: In canon Harper Row hasn't appeared or been mentioned in years. If the bat family has been ignoring her in universe all this time as well. How much must it hurt for someone who was formerly so close to them.
Kudos: 4





	Left Behind

Harper groaned as she rolled over in her bed trying to find a position where the weak beat up fan’s breeze could hit her. The groggy humidity of Gotham night leaks through the shoddy apartment walls and without that breeze Harper finds herself caked in sweat and her mouth tacky and dry from dehydration. She knew she had to get up because trying to sleep anymore at this point would be impossible but she didn’t have the energy. She doesn’t want to have to get up and think.

Eventually her phone goes off and it forces her up to discover that some asshole in Utah has called the wrong number at five in the morning. She ignores it to go get a granola bar and turn on her laptop.

She’d had another shitty dream about her friends again, Cass, Tim, Stephanie and Dick. They hadn’t spoken in almost two years now, shortly after she’d left the Bluebird mantle behind they had suddenly ghosted her and to this day she never really got any sort of apology or real explanation why. It had destroyed her at first, sleepless nights of panic attacks and night terrors. Convincing herself that she had done something to upset them or Bruce or that a mission had gone wrong and they were hurt or dead. Why else wouldn’t they reply? Did Cass realize she had a crush on her? Did they think she was a bad sister for continuing to endanger her brother by associating with them? Was she just not good enough for the Wayne press? She had spiraled picking apart every bit of herself, violently coming to hate every bit of her personality convinced it played a part in losing her only real friends. In the end she had only ever gotten a sort of “It’s because they don’t have time for you outside of heroics, it's nothing personal I'm sure.” from Alfred of all people. That had hurt the most, the fact that they couldn’t just tell her themselves, that they didn’t trust her to tell her. She had given all of her love and trust and devotion to them and in the end they wouldn’t even bother to talk to her.

Sometimes late at night half asleep she forgot about that and confused the unending nightmares she’d had with reality. Believing they had responded and blocked her on everything telling her they’d never forgive her. That she’d hurt them from some vague act, possibly by not protecting them or Gotham anymore. Usually she’d remember when she fully woke up but sometimes if she’d just had a fresh nightmare it would blend and she would panic unsure whether it was real or not desperately checking their social media to see if they were alright. Praying that they were okay. Even after everything she still just wanted them to be happy. She had to teach herself to stop for her own health.

Mornings like this however she couldn’t help herself. Slowly she went through the mini-cycle of searching up their twitters to discover that they were all privated. They no longer followed each other, she had remade her account when they continued to ignore her but like her retweets causing a panic attack every time her phone pinged a notification and showed their screen name convinced that this would be the time they’d disown her entirely. So she’d ran away instead. Discovering a year later that they’d unfollowed her old twitter had been a painful blow but in a way that was her own fault she figured. 

Seeing the accounts privated in a way was a morose sort of relief. It probably meant that there was some sort of public drama regarding the Wayne name again. She hoped it wasn’t adding extra unnecessary stress on everyone. Times were hard enough already with Alfred’s murder. Something she had only learned through tabloid covers of all places. She wasn’t invited to the funeral.

Harper sunk back into her old trashed office chair and quickly closed the browser again before she started feeling desperate to see them again. She missed the movie nights when Stephanie and Tim would come over and trash shitty anime with her and Cullen. She missed hanging out with everyone at the Wayne manor or Tim’s bases just talking shit and those quiet moments when they all came together to look after each other. Most of all she missed when Cass would sneak in the window late at night and they’d talk and cuddle and sleep the night away, no worries of patrol or villains, just the two of them together until the morning rose and Cass would depart the way she came. It wouldn’t do to become some kind of stalker. She couldn’t help missing the people she loved but she could at least respect their wishes to remove her from their lives, as much as it hurt.

Checking the time again to realize it was already seven and she’d been sitting there absorbed in her own sadness for almost two hours she struggled out of the chair to get breakfast ready for Cullen when he got up for school, doing her best to clean herself up and look less disheveled and upset. Her brother had been trying to get her to go to therapy and get help but really, where would you get therapy for a life after being a superhero. Who do you talk to about falling in love with your mother’s killer just to be ghosted by her and her adopted family. 

So she did her best to move on, and for the most part it worked. But today like too many other days she knew it would be a shitty day through and through. She’d just have to get past it like all the others and maybe someday she’d move on or find some way to get some closure. Until then she had to do her best for the people in her life that she had left.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just really excited Harper is coming back and vomited this out. This might also partially be a vent fic.


End file.
